Well, the choir sang, Harry didn’t forget the ring, the bride looked lovely and everyone turned up exactly on time as if they had their own personal sergeant-major balling at them (of which more later).
From what I saw and from what we learn from the media the service went perfectly, well designed, beautifully organised. Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of people will have seen how well we do these things. The contadini in my local bar were fascinated.
But – did you feel a tiny ‘but’? I’m sorry to strike a critical note but it seemed to me a display by a nation which wanted you to know its best years were behind it. Somebody, Charles I think, arrived in a car Winston Churchill might have travelled in; so old you weren’t sure it would make it up the Mall. Its suspension was so weakened from years of carrying fattened dictator guests that the back seemed almost to be touching the ground. And after a fly past by planes from the Second World War, his newly married son left the Palace in a 40 year old Aston Martin.
Many of the troops weren’t even motorised, even though the car was invented over 100 years ago, but rode on horseback – in the middle of London! – harking back to the glory days when we went into battle against the fuzzy wuzzies with high visibility red tunics and sabres drawn.
Why? Why is the Royal Family so obsessed with the military, and the military of a century ago? Why did Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward (who is a film director), Prince Michael of Kent and even the octogenarian Prince Philip have to turn up in military uniform? I believe it is because our Head of Sate was born in the 1920s, to parents born in the 19th century (by contrast the Prime Minister is not yet 45 years old, nor are the leaders of the other two main parties). In the Queen’s circle, among her class, elder sons ran the estate and younger ones went into the military or the Church.
Princess Diana (and I confess I didn’t have much time for her) used to complain that while she took her children to concerts and theme parks, Charles used to show them how to kill animals. The Monarchy doesn’t need more light shining on it, as some claim, but the dust swept up before the light is turned on.
Monarchists are claiming that the marriage of William and Kate will breathe new life into the monarchy, but that has to mean something. It doesn’t have to mean the Royal Family living like us (they are not like us, and nor should they necessarily be) but that they have moved a little with the times, that they are on the same planet. And, if they are to represent our country, they must represent a country from the 21st century.
If the couple’s union is blessed there will be, beneath the Queen, three generations waiting in line. I know people are worried about what Prince Charles would be like in the top job, and it probably would be a bit of a roller coaster, but I am certain he ought to start now, so Prince William can become king in his fifties and, with a lot of help, coax Britain into looking like a modern country.
In my opinion they should all go, but at the very least, if the monarchy is to survive, Her Majesty should abdicate on her Diamond Jubilee.
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